Of What Value Is Philosophy to Science?

Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience by Max R. Bennett; P. M. S. Hacker

Review by: Jos E. Burgos and John W. Donahoe
Behavior and Philosophy, Vol. 34 (2006), pp. 71-87
Published by: Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies (CCBS)
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Behavior

and Philosophy,

34, 71 -87 (2006). ?

2006 Cambridge

A Review

of Max

Hacker's

Philosophical

R. Bennett

Studies

to Science?

is Philosophy

Of what Value

Center for Behavioral

and P. M.

Foundations

S.
of

Neuroscience

University

Jose E. Burgos
CEIC
of Guadalajara
JohnW. Donahoe

University ofMassachusetts,

Amherst

The book Philosophical Foundations ofNeuroscience (2003) is an engaging

ABSTRACT:
criticism of cognitive neuroscience from the perspective of aWittgensteinian philosophy of
ordinary language. The authors' main claim is that assertions like "the brain sees" and "the
lefthemisphere thinks" are integral to cognitive neuroscience but that they aremeaningless
to parts of humans, properties
because they commit themereological fallacy?ascribing
thatmake sense to predicate only ofwhole humans. The authors claim that this fallacy is at
the heart of Cartesian dualism, implying that current cognitive neuroscientists are Cartesian
dualists. Against this claim, we argue that the fallacy cannot be committed within Cartesian
dualism either, for this doctrine does not allow for an intelligible way of asserting that a
soul is part of a human being. Also, the authors' Aristotelian essentialistic outlook is at
odds with theirWittgensteinian stance, and we were unconvinced by their case against
explanatory reductionism. Finally, although theirWittgensteinian stance is congenial with
radical behaviorism, their separation between philosophy and science seems less so
because it is based on a view of philosophy as a priori. The authors' emphasis on the a
priori, however, does not necessarily commit them to rationalism if it is restricted to
conceptual or analytical (as opposed to synthetic) truths.
Key words', cognitive neuroscience, ordinary language,Wittgenstein, mereological fallacy,
Cartesian dualism, essentialism, reductionism
Foundations
is a close philosophical
Philosophical
of Neuroscience
(2003)
scrutiny of neuroscience. At 480-odd pages it provides engaging reading for those
interested in a truly critical appraisal of a largely unchallenged field (but see Uttal,
2001). The extraordinary progress of this field suggests that all is fine and well.
AUTHORS'
NOTE: Work on this paper by the firstauthorwas partly funded by Grant No.
42153H from theMexican National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT).
We
thank Armando Machado
for inviting us to prepare this review and for useful
comments to a previous draft. Please address all correspondence to Jose Burgos, Francisco
de Quevedo
Email:
180, Col. Arcos de Vallarta, Guadalajara, Jalisco 41130, MEXICO;
or
John
in
Behavioral
Donahoe,
Neuroscience,
jburgos@cucba.udg.mx,
Program
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01002, USA;
Email:

jdonahoe@psych.umass.edu.

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Burgos & Donahoe

This progress has given its practitioners, some of Nobel Prize fame, a high sense of
often expressed
as a celebration
self-confidence
of its independence
from
In
celebration
into
derision.
this
book,
philosophy. Alas,
degenerated
mocking
strike back?and
with a vengeance?convincingly
however, philosophers
showing
that neuroscience
is not as healthy as it seems. One of itsmost appealing areas,

is seriously ill. The etiology of the disease

is neither
neuroscience,
nor
This
but
is
made
from a
theoretical,
empirical
logical
diagnosis
not
of
it
and
Wittgensteinian
ordinary language,
only to
philosophy
applies
to
of
itself.
neuroscience
but
also
cognitive
important segments
philosophy
cognitive

book is the result of an unprecedented

collaborative
effort by Max R.
a
a
noted neuroscientist,
S. Hacker,
and P. M.
Bennett,
leading expert on
Their prose is disarmingly candid and direct, their analysis lucid,
Wittgenstein.
and
challenging,
sharp. The book is detailed, extensively documented, well written
The

summaries of the key ideas have

and organized, and quite friendly (one-sentence
been conveniently inserted at the beginning of virtually every paragraph). Love it
or hate it, the arguments are not to be taken lightly. The book should be read
and
and students of neuroscience,
psychology,
carefully by professionals
it as an exemplary exercise in special
thus highly recommend
philosophy. We

philosophy
psychology.

in particular
that can serve as a guide for other disciplines,
not
driven
unreserved
is
of
course,
recommendation,
approval
by

of science
Our

(see later)but the importanceof the topic and the scholarlymanner inwhich

Bennett and Hacker ("the authors" henceforth) have treated it.

After an introductory precis of the book, the contents are divided into four
Part I begins with an historical survey (Chapter 1)
parts and two appendices.
contrast
between the Aristotelian and the Cartesian views of
the
around
revolving

the soul. Chapter 2 focuses on the work of Sherrington and his disciples (Adrian,
Eccles, and Penfield), whom the authors regard as Cartesian dualists. In Chapter 3,
the authors sketch their main criticism. Current cognitive neuroscientists are not
substance dualists but repeatedly commit Descartes' mistake, what the authors call

"meros"
fallacy." The term refers to mereology (from the Greek
with
deals
or
that
of
the
branch
part-whole
ontology
"portion"),
meaning
"part"
see Simons,
relations (for the definitive technical treatise on mereology
1987).
to this criticism and an
This chapter also includes rebuttals of some objections
the authors use to
outline of Wittgenstein's
argument, which
private-language
terms are learned.
propound a view of how themeanings of ordinary psychological
the "mereological

Parts II and III provide a detailed justificationof theircriticism through

of delineation of ordinary ("common or

their
interconnections via analyses of the use
and
concepts
garden") psychological
terms. This exercise targets the writings of prominent
of ordinary psychological
neuroscientists
Damasio,
Blakemore,
Kandel,
(Crick, Edelman,
cognitive
Libet, Bennett himself, and others) on
LeDoux,
Gazzaniga,
Squire, Young,
and
sensation and perception
(Chapter 4), the cognitive powers of knowledge
"connective

analysis"

(p. 378),

a method

memory (Chapter 5), the cogitativepowers of thoughtand imagination(Chapter

6), emotion
consciousness

(Chapter 8), and

7), volition and voluntary movement
four
In
the
latter
9
chapters, the authors also
through 12).
(Chapters

(Chapter

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Review of Bennett & Hacker

examine
Dennett,

Chalmers,
critically the views of philosophers of mind such as McGinn,
more
on consciousness.
Part IV waxes
and Searle
philosophical,

highlightingtheproblem of reductionism(Chapter 13) and the relationsbetween

philosophy

and

philosophical
Daniel Dennett

neuroscience
and are dedicated
and John Searle.

are also
two appendices
14). The
(Chapter
to criticisms of the methodological
of
proposals

The Authors' Message

The mereological fallacy is discussed indetail inChapter 3 but introducedin

it is defined as follows: "ascribing

to a part of a creature
1, where
Chapter
attributes which logically can be ascribed only to the creature as a whole"
(p. 29).
It is a violation
of what
the authors call the "mereological
in
principle
"psychological
predicates which apply only to human beings (or
as
other animals)
wholes cannot intelligibly be applied to their parts, such as the
brain." The authors continue thus:

neuroscience":

Human beings, but not theirbrains, can be said to be thoughtful or thoughtless;

animals, but not their brains, let alone the hemispheres of their brains, can be
said to see, hear, smell and taste things; people, but not theirbrains, can be said
tomake decisions or to be indecisive, (p. 73)
of the ventricular
account, the fallacy is a descendant
400
to
which
all
mental
functions are
(ca.
A.D.),
according
in the ventricles. Nemesius
localized
thus departed from Aristotle's
view of the
soul or psyche as the "unexercised
or
"essential, defining
dispositional
powers"
In their historical

doctrine of Nemesius

functions"(p. 14) of a whole living being. The summitof this departure is

dualism, where a soul (mind, self) is essentially a thinking immaterial

substance, a body is an essentially material (spatially extended) substance, and the
two are the causally
like
interacting parts of a human being. Thus Descartes,
ascribed
as
a
to
a
attributes
the
soul
of
human
Nemesius,
psychological
part
being.
Cartesian dualism, supplemented with Locke's
account of qualities, became
Cartesian

influence on cognitive-neuroscientific
research for the next
philosophical
three centuries to the present time. Although current cognitive neuroscientists have
substance dualism, they keep ascribing psychological
attributes
largely abandoned
themain

to parts of human

beings, typically their brains. Such attributions, however, are

or
refers to a logically
invalid
Here, "fallacious"
logically flawed
fallacious.
whose
do
not
a
entail
error
its
It
conclusion.
is
in that
argument
premises
logical
the argument is taken as if itwere?when
it actually is not?logically
valid.
Standard analyses of fallacies in informal logic revolve around prototypical
inference patterns of faulty ordinary reasoning. Two patterns concern us here:

division

and equivocation. The fallacy of division erroneously prescribes thatwhat

is true of something is true of its parts (e.g., "A clock gives the hour; hence a
clock's wheels also give the hour"). The fallacy of equivocation
results from using
certain terms in different senses throughout an argument (e.g., "The end of a thing
is its perfection; death is the end of life; hence, death is the perfection of life").

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Burgos & Donahoe

The mereological
fallacy can be seen as a sort of compound of these two
restricted to ordinary psychological
terms and concepts. In cognitive
the
is
manifested
in expressions where
neuroscience,
fallacy
paradigmatically
are asserted to perceive, believe, know, reason,
brains and brain hemispheres
imagine, remember, feel, and be aware or conscious. The problem with these
fallacies,

expressions
nothing,

so

mereological
through more

is not that they are false but that they are meaningless.
They assert
are
not
are
assertions.
nonsensical
they
They
gibberish. The
or
a
error
not
can
is
factual
theoretical
that
be corrected
fallacy, then,

experimentation or better theorizing. It is a kind of "confusion" or

"incoherence," words the authors use frequently to refer to unintelligible uses of
terms.
ordinary psychological

For example,
consider
the terms "sight" and "belief," with all their
in Aristotelian
variants. As
grammatical
epitomized
hylomorphism,
they are
see
a
to
to
creatures.
"/
used
refer
whole
One
red
ordinarily
light,"
ordinarily says
not "my brain sees a red light," and "you believe
it is raining," not "your brain
it is raining," and so on. The two senses are conceptually connected (e.g.,
"I believe I saw a red light"). One might want to use "sight" more precisely, to
refer to a part of a creature, like its striate cortex. In the interest of clarity, the new

believes

sense should be introduced through an explicit definition. For instance, one should
at the outset thatfor thepurposes of the analysis, "sight" will be defined as
"a temporary activation of one or more neurons in striate cortex correlated with a
radiation of a certain wavelength."
temporary presence of an electromagnetic

declare

Under

this definition,

expressions

like "My

brain

saw

red

light" become

meaningful.
The authors do not prohibit this kind of redefinitional move per se. They have
or quasi-technical
no problem
of ordinary
redefinitions
with
technical
a
common
are
terms.
scientific
Such
redefinitions
practice that the
psychological
authors do not dispute:

There is nothing unusual, let alone amiss, in scientists introducing a new way of
talking under the pressure of a new theory. If this is confusing to the benighted
readers, the confusion can easily be resolved. Of course, brains do not literally
think, believe, infer, interpret or hypothesize, they think*, believe*, infer*,
interpret* or hypothesize*. They do not have or construct symbolic
representations, but symbolic representations*, (p. 74)
Our criticisms of the mereological
fallacy in neuroscience do not preclude
neuroscientists from using the verbs 'to think', 'to believe', 'to perceive', 'to
remember' in new ways according to conditions other than the received
conditions of theiruse, as long as they can explain what these new uses mean.
They can, if they so wish, redefine 'thinking', 'believing', 'perceiving',
'remembering', and give a meaning to the phrases 'My brain thought that itwas
better to keep silent', 'Your brain believes that it is Tuesday tomorrow', 'His
brain perceived that she was smiling', or 'Her brain remembered to go home.'

(p. 384)

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Review of Bennett & Hacker

In our example, then, it is not thatmy brain saw a red light, but thatmy brain
is to be linked to the above redefinition of "sight."
saw* a red light,where "saw*"
What would be the point of such redefinition? The same as that of many other (if
not most) definitions: abbreviation.
By and large, definitions are abbreviation
of
devices that seek economy
expression. Why use "sight*"? This question ismore
answer
that the string "sight" could
is to concede
indeed be
difficult. One
new
a
so
to
the
awkward
asterisk
coin
be
better
it
would
term,
making
confusing,
answer
not
the
authors'
is
closer
but
does
Another
to,
raise,
unnecessary.
quite
concern: sight* could be hypothesized as a neural correlate of a certain form of
ordinary use of "sight."
The authors have no qualms with
are not enough:

these answers

either, although

redefinitions

formation rules would have to be stipulated, the conditions for the correct
application for these innovative phrases would need to be specified, and the
logical consequences of theirapplication would have to be spelled out. (p. 384)

New

The result of this kind of task, however, would be a system of concepts quite
ones that motivated
different from the ordinary psychological
the analysis in the
firstplace.

The authors' criticism is that cognitive neuroscientists neither have done, nor
seem to want to do, the additional work. Rather, "they are trying to discover the
for thinking, believing, perceiving
neural basis
and remembering?not
for
something else" (p. 384). This
dubious is to try to accomplish

is
task, of course, is perfectly legitimate. What
as
it by construing brains and brain hemispheres
thinking, believing, perceiving, and remembering. Such constructions do not allow
us to understand human behavior any better than construing clock cogs as giving
the time allows

us to understand clock behavior. They only give us the illusion of

than conceptually clear
They are no better (in fact, they are worse)

understanding.
descriptions of experimental findings.
In our example, the authors would

criticize inferences of assertions about the

brain believing from assertions about the brain seeing* (e.g., "your brain saw* a
red light and hence believed
itwas real"). Such inferences are violations of the
semantic limits (in the authors' words, "transgressions of the bounds of sense")

connections
imposed by "sight*" relative to those imposed by the conceptual
between "sight" and "belief." The meaning of "sight*" is thus mixed up with that
of "sight." It is this kind of semantic muddle
that the authors regard as incoherent
and confused, and it is what
ever since Nemesius.

they insist cognitive neuroscientists

have been doing

In anotherexample fromthebook, Sperry(1974; citedby theauthors,p. 389)

took research on split-brain patients to demonstrate that the right hemisphere

is "a
conscious
system in its own right, perceiving, thinking, remembering, reasoning,
willing, and emoting, all at a characteristically human level." This interpretation is

a paradigmatic
to
fallacy in cognitive neuroscience:
example of the mereological
terms
the
assert about a human brain hemisphere what, under the meanings
of
used, makes sense only to assert about whole humans. The problem, again, is that

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Burgos & Donahoe

such

expressions

are meaningless,

for

the terms "conscious,"

"willing," and "emoting"

"remembering," "reasoning,"
technically redefined, let alone their new conceptual
the only meanings
they can have when
Consequently,
"thinking,"

"perceiving,"
have not been

interrelationships specified.
used are the ordinary ones.
the
human beings. Hence,

these meanings
apply only to whole
expressions assert nothing and they do not contribute to our understanding
research at all. They only add confusion.

However,

Instead of Sperry's

account,

the authors propose

of this

the following:

has been discovered by experiments on split-brain patients is a very

strange dissociation offunctions that are normally intimately associated and a
consequent confabulation-generating confusion, which are manifest primarily
(but not exclusively) under experimental conditions when the visual stimulus is

What

controlled by the experimenter, (p. 391)

This functional dissociation and associated confabulation is explained by

reference to the fact that the light stimulus from the snow scene affected the
right hemisphere, the severance of which from the lefthemisphere deprived the
was presented to
patient of the ability to describe or be visually aware of what
him on the left of his visual field, although, remarkably, he was, by pointing,
able to associate correctlywhat was there (viz., the snow scene) with a shovel.
Nevertheless, he did not know why he made that association (not being aware of
the snow scene being presented to him), and confabulated a tale to explain why
he had done so (a confabulation comparable to those produced by subjects to
explain their post-hypnotically suggested behavior). This, in turn, is crudely
explicable by reference to the fact that the visual stimulation of the right
hemisphere is disconnected from the left hemisphere, so that the patient is
aware of what is
deprived of his normal cognitive capacity to be visually
familiar
to
and
describe
to
him
and
objects that are thus
recognize
presented
to
of
associate what was
him
the
not
however
It
does
ability
deprive
presented.
an
screen
on
with
to
him
the
appropriate object (viz. a
visually presented
so.
is
he
without
392)
doing
(p.
why
knowing
shovel)?but

It is an admittedly crude explanation, largely indistinguishablefrom a

of the phenomenon,

description

except for the fact that electromagnetic

radiations

within a certainwavelength range affectthe righthemisphere,and thatthe right

hemisphere is functionallyconnectedwith the lefthemispherethroughthecorpus
If a more

is wanted, ascribing perception, thought,

refined explanation
memory, reason, will, and emotion to the right hemisphere will not do. On the
contrary, itwill only worsen matters, for itwill create conceptual muddle.
refined explanations would
More
appeal at least to the functioning of the
callosum.

cortex of each hemisphere, how they are functionally related, and how their
normal relations are disrupted by commissurotomy. This explanation can be made

visual

of thedifferent
as refinedas wished by appealing to the structure
and functioning
that constitute

microcircuits
molecular

levels. This

phenomenon,

let alone

each

possibility,
the normal

cortex, and so on, down to the cellular and

that the split-brain
however, does not mean
functioning of a human being, is reducible to

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Review of Bennett & Hacker

the structure and functioning of a nervous
and eliminative
explanatory,
ontological,

system. The authors explicitly reject

for
reductionism,
although more

philosophical implausibilitythanfallaciousness (see later).

The authors argue that themuddle is not poetic license, metaphoric

license, or
are
science popularization, which
perfectly legitimate if pursued wisely. Nor is it
the result of struggling with the poverty of ordinary psychological
vocabulary. The
in the theoretical and experimental
fabric of cognitive
or
It cannot be corrected within science through experimentation
nor
a
an
for
it
is
neither
theoretical
theorizing,
empirical
problem. It
is a purely conceptual problem that can only be resolved by clarifying the logic of

muddle

is interwoven

neuroscience.
more accurate

the termsbeing used, and this clarificationis the bailiwick of philosophy. Of

it cannot

the wealth of experimental data amassed

in cognitive
it inspire new research.
It will
make
research
only
more
and
presuppositions,
explanations,
interpretations
meaningful.
If we have grasped the authors' point, we can hardly disagree with it. The
course,

invalidate

nor

neuroscience,

can

dictum that stems from it is a sensible one: use your

terms carefully. Using

a term

carefullysignifiesnot only definingitclearlyand following itsdefinition,but also

connections with other

specifying and paying close attention to its conceptual
are cheap, so following
terms. Definitions
them is unproblematic.
the
Again,
concern
authors'
is not with definitions
in and by themselves. Of course,
definitions can be unclear and, to this extent, hinder scientific research, but this is

not

the kind of unclearness

the authors' have in their sights. To them, being

not
is
conceptually
merely a matter of providing unclear definitions; it is
a
not
matter
also
of
abiding by the conceptual connections among the terms used.
so in cognitive neuroscience
Not
has
led to meaningless
research
doing
and
The
in
presuppositions,
justifications,
interpretations.
painstaking
analyses
Parts II and HI show convincingly that the mereological
runs
in
rampant
fallacy
unclear

current scientific and philosophical

research on themind-body

Our

nexus.

Concerns

agreement notwithstanding, we have a few concerns. First, it is

the mereological
fallacy can actually be committed in Cartesian
even
dualism. Moreover,
it is not
clear that this doctrine needs mereological
talk of
Our

basic

unclear whether

souls being parts of humans, or humans being composites of souls and bodies.
Second, there is an odd tension between the authors' Wittgensteinian
stance, which
is characteristically
and
their
embracement
of
Aristotelian
anti-essentialistic,

which
is characteristically
hylomorphism,
case against
unconvinced
the
authors'
by
concern
turn.
elaborate each
in
Cartesian
The

Dualism

and theMereological

essentialistic.
explanatory

were
Third, we
Let us
reductionism.

Fallacy

authors'

neuroscientists,

charge of "crypto-Cartesianism"
against current cognitive
most
the
of
the
book
perhaps
(see pp. 111-114, 233
striking aspect

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Burgos & Donahoe

The charge rests on the claim that the

core
at
is
the
of
the
mereological
fallacy
logic of Cartesian dualism. This claim, in
on
relies
the
that
Descartes
took a human being as a "composite
turn,
assumption
a
are
a
whose
and
mind. The authors then argue that
entity" (p. 26)
parts
body
Descartes
committed the fallacy in that he ascribed psychological
attributes to a
soul as a part of a human being, when logically he should have ascribed them to
235),

requires

further examination.

the human being as a whole. The fallacy crept into cognitive neuroscience
through
on Sherrington and his disciples, who also ascribed
the influence of Descartes
attributes to themind. Substance dualism was eventually abandoned
psychological

in favor of materialism,
but parts of human beings, typically brains and brain
as the bearers of
came
to replace
and remained
the mind
hemispheres,
attributes.
psychological
Our concern here is whether the mereological
fallacy can be committed

Cartesian dualism. Our rationale is as follows. In order to commit the

fallacy, one must be able to assert intelligibly that a soul is a part of a human.
it is not clear that this condition ismet in Cartesian dualism. Therefore,
However,

within

that the fallacy can be committed inCartesian dualism.

spatial parts and temporal parts as the primary candidates

it is equally unclear
Consider

for

soul qua spatially unextended substance cannot be

parthood. Evidently,
a spatial part of anything. Can
is more
it be a temporal part? This question
a
A
is
in
the
answerable
but
phase,
negative.
temporal part
complicated
equally
that is, something that exists only in a certain moment in time. Parts of events are
the prototypical examples of temporal parts. A baseball game has innings, an opera
a Cartesian

has acts, a symphony has movements, and so on. Events thus exist incompletely in
in time during their occurrence. A baseball game in its inning four
any moment
exists incompletely during that inning, for some of its parts (innings one, two, and

three)lie in thepast and others(inningsfive, six, etc.) lie in thefuture.

A basic intuition about parts is that they are smaller than thewholes of which
they are parts. An arm is smaller than a body, an atom smaller than a molecule.

This intuitionis behindCommon Notion 5 of Euclidean geometry:The whole is

greater

than the parts.

It is also

honored

in the first disjunct

of a mereological

principle:x is a part of y ifand only ifx is a properpart of y or x is equal toy

1987, p. 26). The proper-parthood relation in this principle is analogous

(Simons,
to (in fact, based on) the arithmetic relation of less-than and thus denotes a strict
second
partial ordering (i.e., irreflexivity, asymmetry, and transitivity). The
disjunct of the principle is less intuitive, so we shall ignore itunder the assumption
that the authors refer to proper parts when

they speak of parts.

The intuitionapplies equally to temporalparthood.A temporalpart of an

event is a shorter event. An inning is shorter than a baseball game; an act is shorter
a soul cannot be intelligibly said to be shorter than a
than an opera. Obviously,
human in Cartesian dualism, for in this doctrine souls are immortal, bodies are
mortal, and humans are interactions between souls and bodies. Souls, then, cannot

intelligibly said to be proper temporal parts of humans. Nor can a soul be

intelligibly said to be an improper part of a human either, because according to the

be

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Review of Bennett & Hacker

above mereological
improper parthood amounts to identity, and in
principle,
Cartesian dualism a human is not identical to a soul.
Descartes'
talk of a soul as a part of a human, then, is incoherent with his own
If
the
Cartesian
dualist insists in asserting that a soul is a part of a human,
doctrine.
or that a human is a composite of a soul and a body, he would have to redefine the
or any other
that Descartes
notion of parthood. There is no textual evidence
dualist has attempted to do this, and it ismost unclear whether it can be
violating our most basic intuitions about parthood?but
perhaps the

Cartesian

done without

Cartesian dualist need not go down this slippery slope. Cartesian dualism would
not seem to depend critically on mereological
talk of souls being parts of humans
or humans being composites
fusions, mixtures, or unions) of
(or combinations,
seem to be entirely dispensable
in Cartesian
souls and bodies. Such talk would

The core of this doctrine is that substances are sharply divided

into
and immaterial, and the latter interact with some of the former for some
is nowhere to be found in this core.
time. Talk of parts and wholes
in Cartesian dualism? Not as a
But then, how could a human be conceived
or
a
an
union
but
interaction
of,
between, an immaterial substance and a
composite
material substance. This answer neither presupposes nor entails any mereological
dualism.

material

relation. Descartes'
talk of souls as parts of humans and humans as
mereological
or
unions
souls
of
and
bodies can thus be safely dismissed as careless
composites
and ontologically
Such talk represents no significant aspect of
inconsequential.

Cartesian

dualism.

considerations, of course, do not solve all the problems with Cartesian

In particular, the problem of how an immaterial substance can interact
we are not trying to rescue
with a material
substance remains?but

These
dualism.
causally
Cartesian

are only arguing that it cannot be the logical root of the

in
forwithin Cartesian dualism a soul
mereological
fallacy
cognitive neuroscience,
cannot be intelligibly asserted to be a part of a human being. Nor does the core of
Cartesian dualism require such an assertion. Hence, not only can the fallacy not be
dualism here. We

committed but also

the mereological

talk that the authors take as evidence

in Cartesian dualism.
fallacy is entirely dispensable
To be sure, the fallacy can be committed in current cognitive

for the

neuroscience,

for a brain and a brain hemispherecan intelligiblybe asserted to be parts of a

human being. However,

contrary to the authors' claim, Cartesian dualism cannot
be blamed for the fallacy any more than Aristotelian hylomorphism. At most, the
of Descartes'
fallacy can be attributed to Sherrington's unreflective acceptance
in turn,was
careless writing about souls being parts of humans. This acceptance,
carried over by later cognitive neuroscientists
after abandoning
uncritically
dualism and replacing the soul with the brain. But the authors are not
to aver that current cognitive neuroscience
entitled
"propounds a form of
logically
is
"like
Cartesianism"
(pp. Ill, 112), or "retain[s]
(p. Ill),
crypto-Cartesianism"
substance

the logical structure of Cartesian psychology"

(p. 113). The fallacy
no
more
is
Cartesian
than
it
isAristotelian.
cognitive neuroscience
These

position. On

do not leave current cognitive neuroscience

the contrary, the fallacy becomes a result of unconditional

considerations

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in current

in a better
intellectual

Burgos & Donahoe

or ignorance. Such consent is
is worse
than misunderstanding
consent, which
for
it
the
critical
characterizes
goes
mystifying,
against
spirit that supposedly
science and philosophy. The mystification, however, results from themyth of the

faultless genius, a myth that confuses brightness with perfection. A moral of the
in this respect is that even geniuses can and do make blatant mistakes.
theNobel Prize, the archetype of the scientific genius, does not mean that
Winning
thewinner is right in everything he or she says, writes, or does. The Nobel Prize is
book

for an outstanding
recognition
intellectual flawlessness.

not

in science,

achievement

certificate

of

In itsmost

perverse form, the myth takes being an outstanding scientist as

for
sufficient
being an equally outstanding philosopher of the science practiced. To
a
be sure, deep understanding of a science is necessary for philosophizing properly

about it,but it isnot sufficient.

The book is a forcefulexampleof themisery of this
form of

the myth. Crick, Edelman,

and Kandel,
the Nobel
Prize recipients
are
the
named
book,
repeatedly
throughout
undoubtedly outstanding scientists.
not
this
does
make
them
of the
However,
necessarily
outstanding philosophers
nor
it
immunize
them
blatant
mistakes.
does
science they practice,
against
logical
Aristotelian
Our

Essentialism
second

commitment

versus Wittgensteinian

concern

arises

toWittgenstein's

from an

odd

Anti-Essentialism
tension

between

ordinary language philosophy

the authors'

(as expounded

in his

Philosophical Investigations [1953]) and theiressentialisticproclivities.The latter

are apparent in their endorsement of Aristotelian hylomorphism. Central to it is the
in terms of the distinction
is made
distinction between form and matter, which
between essential and accidental properties (see p. 13). The two distinctions are the

basis

for the view

that the soul "consists

of the essential,

defining

functions of a

living thingwith organs" (p. 14, our italics).Thus it is difficultnot to read as

essentialistic

the assertions

that "[psychological

predicates

are predicates

that

apply essentially to thewhole livinganimal, not to itsparts" (p. 72) and "[the
ability

to act for reasons

and be aware

of them] is essentially

dependent

upon

language" (p. 314).

However, Aristotle conceived of essences (to ti en einai, "the what itwas to
be," or to ti esti, "the what it is") as universals (katholou), which are supposed to
be invariable across, or common
thus
Essences
to, multiple
exemplifications.1
to
terms
have
imply strict commonality whose
linguistic expression
requires
univocal, fixed meanings. Certain languages, such as formal logic, allow for such

uses of ordinary psychological

terms, in contrast, are
expression. Rule-governed
too changeable
to admit such meanings. Wittgenstein's
talk of "language games"
instead of "definition" was his way of conveying the
and "family resemblances"
essences
of
in ordinary language. Although
he wrote
futility
searching for

Admittedly, there is controversy over whether Aristotle conceived of essences

universals, so our present concern is grounded only on thepossibility thathe did.

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as

Review of Bennett & Hacker

"Essence

is expressed

wrote:

by grammar"

(Philosophical

Investigations,

?371),

he also

for example the proceedings thatwe call 'games'. I mean board

games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on.What is common to
them all??Don't
say: "There must be something common, or theywould not be
called 'games'"?but
look and see whether there is anything common to all.?
For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but
similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. (?66)

Consider

This depiction starkly contrasts with

and sameness in ordinary language:

the authors'

talk of conceptual

commonality

Concepts are abstractions from the use of words. The concept of a cat iswhat is
common to the use of 'cat', 'chat', 'Katze', etc. (p. 65, our italics)
The words 'cat', 'chat', and 'Katze' are symbols in three different languages, all
ofwhich express one and the same concept, (p. 345, our italics)
This

talk is puzzling in view ofWittgenstein's

notions of language games and
were
motivated
family resemblance, which, again,
by his conviction thatmeaning
in ordinary language, as given by rule-following
is too
everyday-life usage,

to admit an account
in terms of commonality
and sameness. The
changeable
to
sense
authors also make reference
the logicians'
of "qualitative
identity" (p.
it. This reference too is puzzling when
96n), apparently without disowning
to Wittgenstein's
turn from formal logic in the Tractatus
to
compared
(1961)
ordinary

are not claiming that

in the Philosophical
Investigations. We
essences
or
even
the
existence
of
universals.
The issue is
rejected

language

Wittgenstein
linguistic, not ontological. Universals may well exist (although demonstrating their
existence
is no trivial matter); however, for better or worse,
them
expressing
linguistically requires a highly formalized language that extremely simplifies and,
to this extent, departs considerably
from ordinary language,
the focus of the
authors' analysis.

Explanatory

Reductionism
we

were

by the authors'
unimpressed
rejection of explanatory
This rejection is largely independent of the authors'
can thus
of conceptual
in cognitive neuroscience.
confusion
One
diagnosis
with
the
and
still
with
the
coherently agree
diagnosis
disagree
rejection. Avoiding
themereological
fallacy does not commit oneself to explanatory anti-reductionism,
nor does explanatory anti-reductionism entail the fallacy.
Thirdly,
reductionism

(pp. 355-366).

rejection in question has two aspects. On the one hand, the authors claim
that human action cannot be explained in terms of neural laws because there are no
The

psychological

laws of human action:

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Burgos & Donahoe

. . .it is far from evident that there is
anything that can be dignified by the name
of psychological
laws of human action, thatmight be reduced to, and so
explained by reference to,whatever neurological laws might be discovered. For,
as far as explaining human action is concerned, it is clear enough that although
there are many differentkinds of explanation of why people act as they do, or
why a certain person acted as they did, they are not nomological explanations
(i.e., they are not explanations that refer to a natural law of human behaviour).
There are, to be sure, explanations of a person's action that explain it by
identifying it as an instance of a general pattern. So, we may explain why A does
Vby reference to the fact that it is a habit, or thatA has a tendency to Vin such
moments as these, or that it is a custom in A's community to V in such
circumstances and A is a conventional sort of person, or thatA is in such-and
such a predicament and people with A's kind of personality traits tend to V in
such circumstances. But these explanations do not specify anything that could
possibly be deemed as strict law; nor do they explain the behaviour by deducing
it from a law and a set of initial conditions. Instead, they identify it as an
instance of one or another kind of rough regularity of the person's behaviour,
which may admit ofmany exceptions.2
It is unclear

exactly what

the authors mean

when

they deny

that "there is

anythingthatcan be dignifiedby thename ofpsychological laws" (p. 362). Two

laws do not exist, or they do but

possibilities present themselves: psychological
tenet that requires far
remain to be discovered. The former is a strong ontological
more explication
than is found in the book. The latter refers to a temporary
the
condition thatmay or may not be obtained in the future.Additionally,
to
laws
when
deterministic
restrict
their
authors
("strict")
philosophers of
argument
or
laws are
statistical laws. If psychological
science largely admit probabilistic
statistical (not too big an "if), they admit exceptions. Hence, any of the alternative

historical

explanations the authors mention are good candidates for probabilistic laws.3
on the other hand, even if reasoned human action were
But no matter?for,
to
neural laws, the resulting explanations would be inferior
reducible
explanatorily
to those that appeal to the behaving person's reasons:
call on Jack only to find him out.We ask where he is, and are told he has
gone to town.We want to know why, and are told that it is his wife's birthday,

We

The authors refer here to the logico-positivistic, nomologico-deductive, covering-law

model of theoretical explanation. In thismodel, a theoretical explanation is a deductive
argument whose premises are one or more neural laws, and whose conclusion is a
law. As is well known, bridge principles or correspondence rules are
psychological
required for thismodel towork. The authors also deny the existence of such principles, but
as an argument against ontological reductionism. The denial, however, also applies to
explanatory reductionism under the covering-law model. In any case, the denial is
conspicuously similar toDavidson's (1970) anomalous monism.
3
Additionally, probabilistic laws force us to abandon the covering-law model (see footnote
2). The authors' rejection of explanatory reductionism thus becomes inapplicable, insofar
as it is restricted to thatmodel.

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Review of Bennett & Hacker

that he booked tickets for Tosca weeks ago, and that he has taken her to her
favourite opera. Would a neuroscientific storydeepen our understanding of the
situation and events? In what way does it need deepening? Does anything
remain puzzling once themundane explanation has been given? (p. 364)
We

the first and third questions with a resounding "yes." The authors'
at social
of Jack's behavior
arbitrarily stops the explanation
and conventions. But surely many (us included) are further puzzled by

answer

answer

negative

practices
the practices

and

conventions

themselves.

can thus be
question
are
those practices and conventions
The

second

in terms of explanations
of how
are
how
instantiated in specific individuals, what the
they
acquired
of
the
similarities
and
differences
observed among them are, and so on.
origins
to these questions will certainly deepen our understanding of reasoned
Answers
answered

and maintained,

action, and cognitive neuroscience

to contribute to them.

(sans

themereological

fallacy) may

have much

on what
the authors mean
and
course, much depends
by "deepen"
can
Here
the
authors'
be
turned
toward
Wittgensteinian
"understanding."
approach
Of

of "deepen"
is "to extend well
inward from an outer
Online
(Merriam-Webster
By referring to certain inward
Dictionary).
and their functioning (brain hemispheres,
anatomical macro- and microstructures
them. One

surface"

ordinary use

areas, nuclei, neurons, etc.), whatever explanations

cognitive neuroscience might
our
as
will
insofar
understanding
they expand our knowledge
provide
deepen
and
into
observable
behavior
cerebral
So, the sense in
processes.
beyond publicly
which cognitive neuroscience will deepen our understanding of human behavior is
perfectly consistent with that usage of "deepen."
What about "understanding"? Ordinary uses include the following: "to grasp
the meaning
of, to have thorough or technical
of, to grasp the reasonableness

acquaintance with or expertness in the practice of, to be thoroughly familiar with

the character and propensities of, to accept as a fact or truth or regard as plausible
without utter certainty, to interpret in one of a number of possible ways, to supply

to achieve a
in thought as though expressed, to have the power of comprehension,
or infer
or
to
of
believe
of
the nature, significance,
grasp
explanation
something,
or
a
tolerant attitude toward
sympathetic
something to be the case, to show

The assumption that cognitive

something" (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary).
neuroscience will deepen our understanding of human behavior is compatible with
most, ifnot all, of these uses of "understanding."
The authors further argue:
It is perfectly intelligible thatour knowledge of the gross observable reactions of
water with various chemicals should be deepened by an understanding of the
will
atomic and subatomic constitution of water (and other chemicals)?which
we
can
not
the
about
behaviour
but
do
that
understand,
observe,
explain things
of water. But is it really intelligible to suppose that the conduct of individual
human beings in the circumstances of their lives will always be rendered clearer
by neuroscience? (p. 364)

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Burgos & Donahoe

Again, much depends on what the authors mean by "clearer" here. Ordinarily, to
render clearer is to free from opaqueness,
ambiguity, or indistinctness, to make
or
render human behavior
unclouded.
Neuroscientific
transparent
explanations
as
more
to
is publicly
what
lies beyond what
transparent insofar
they refer
or
in ordinary situations. They will also make
it less ambiguous
observable

indistinct, thanks to their technical character.

there is a logical connection between knowledge and intelligibility.
Moreover,
is
Something
intelligible very much in thatwe possess some knowledge about it.
of our observations of the reactions of water to atomic and subatomic
Reduction
is intelligible in the sense that we know these laws (and those about such
reactions, as well as the necessary bridge principles). Without this knowledge, such
A
similar
reduction would
be unintelligible,
for inconceivable.
obviously
consideration applies to the authors' argued unintelligibility of the assumption that
laws

human

behavior

may well

be due

will

be rendered clearer by neuroscience.

This unintelligibility
to our present ignorance about human behavior and its neural

substrates.

Granted, using water effectively in everyday life (for quenching one's thirst,
bathing, boiling food, making ice, dissolving, etc.) does not require knowledge of
intuitive knowledge of the reactions of water suffices for
quantum mechanics?our
that?but
itwould be grotesque to regard quantum-mechanical
explanations of the
reactions of water as somehow
the latter
inferior to intuitive ones just because
are
suffice for everyday life. There
non-ordinary (scientific and technological) uses
that require quantum mechanics.
They admittedly are far removed from
common
life
and
but
this
does not make quantum-mechanical
sense,
everyday
ones.
to
At
inferior
intuitive
worst, they are inferior relative to
explanations
uses
are more legitimate or important
to
who
is
but
that
such
say
ordinary uses,
of water

than non-ordinary ones?

Similarly, the fact thatwe

with

reasoned

to intuitive explanations.

do not need cognitive-neuroscientific

laws to deal
life does not imply that they are inferior

in everyday
It surely seems

human action

implausible that they could be improved

but then again, as likely as not, this is because we do
one deals with reasoned human action in everyday life,

by cognitive neuroscience,
not know any better. When
one can rightly ask: "Who needs cognitive neuroscience
to understand
this?"
for that. However,
this
Indeed, we need not bother with cognitive neuroscience
does not logically exclude the possibility of future circumstances where knowledge
of such laws will be required. Nor
is this possibility
logically guaranteed, of
course, and herein lies the predicament. Our present ignorance prevents us from

making any certain predictions in this respect, one way or the other. It is not even
certain thatwe will be able to discover the relevant psychological
laws, or that they
to
out
to
is
exist. The only way
try,with all the concomitant risks (waste of
find
time, money, and energy), but this is the way science works.
involves a great deal of trial and error (and success as well).

Science

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inevitably

Review

of Bennett

& Hacker

Concluding Remarks
What

should

the book? There

radical behaviorists, a likely audience of this journal, make of

surely are important agreements between radical behaviorism and

the authors' later-Wittgensteinian stance. The ten similarities mentioned

by Day
(1969) are found throughout the book: anti-logical positivism, anti-reductionism,
anti-mentalism,
anti-Cartesianism,
descriptivism,
private events as significant,
a
nature of language,
of
the
behavioral
purely private language,
impossibility
as usage.
to
of
reference
theories
and
These
opposition
language,
meaning
similarities, however, need to be complemented
First, in contrast to radical behaviorists,
causation of overt behavior:

two potential differences.

the authors seem to admit neural

with

The term 'representation' here signifies merely causal connectedness. That is

innocuous enough [referringto a quotation by Blakemore inwhich he refers to
the relation of "the activity of the nerves to events in the outside world or in the
animal's body"], (p. 79)
The correlation between [cells'] firingand features is. . .a causal one. (p. 80)
Parts of the brain. . .are causally implicated in cognition, recognition and action,

(p. 142)

The capacity to remember various kinds of things is causally dependent on

differentbrain areas and on synapticmodifications in these areas, (p. 159)
groups. . .are causally
capacities, (p. 393)

Neural

implicated

in the exercise

of the relevant

and
between philosophy
there is the authors'
Second,
sharp disanalogy
the
science. In particular, they claim that philosophy
philosophy of
(specifically,

ordinary language, the kind of philosophy they practice) is independentof

across
the boundaries
between
which
neuroscience,
"operates
cognitive
. .
to the a priori,
(p. 2). This claim appeals
.neurophysiology and psychology"
versus
the
of ordinary
character of the philosophy
language
non-empirical
the
authors
that
of
neuroscience.
On
claim
character
this
basis,
cognitive
empirical
philosophy does not, cannot, and should not suggest new experimental research in

nor the latter solve philosophical

neuroscience,
problems. Thinking
a
of the nature of philosophy and science.
reveals
deep misunderstanding
Of what value, then, is philosophy to science? Succinctly put, the authors' answer
is this: "What philosophy can contribute to science is conceptual clarification." By
that they mean "[Pointing] out when the bounds of sense are transgressed"
(p.
cognitive
otherwise

405). More

elaborately:

The suggestion that epistemology should be grounded in neuroscience can be

proposed only by someone with an infirmgrasp of what epistemology is. It is,
after all, not an empirical enquiry into how, as a matter of fact, human beings
can and do acquire whatever knowledge they have?that
is learning theory,

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Burgos & Donahoe

which is a branch of psychology. Rather, epistemology is an a priori enquiry
into the web of epistemic concepts that is formed by the connections,
compatibilities and incompatibilities between the concept of knowledge, belief,
conviction, suspicion, supposition, conjecture, doubt, certainty, memory,
evidence and self-evidence, truth and falsehood, probability, reasons and
reasoning, etc. The relevant connections are logical or conceptual?and
neuroscientific investigations can shed no lightupon the normative connections

of logic (construing 'logic' broadly). Epistemology is also concerned with the

logical character of justifications of knowledge claims, of confirmation and
disconfirmation, of the differences between deductive and inductive support, of
what counts as evident and what stands in need of evidence, and so forth.This
too is not an empirical investigation. It could not possibly be furtheredby the
discovery of facts about thebrain, (p. 406)
the same goes for the discovery of facts about behavior. The
Presumably,
radical behaviorist's disagreement with all this seems clear. Apriorism smacks too

much

of

rationalism,

innatism,

and

(more modernly)

nativism,

all

of which

diminish the role of experience in the acquisition of knowledge (especially

interpretation
language). As is well known, Skinner's (1957) operant-conditioning
nativism of Chomsky
of language acquisition
strongly opposes the psychological
(e.g., 1957), Fodor (e.g., 1975), and Pinker (e.g., 1994).
it should be clarified that the authors' apriorism does not commit
However,
them to nativism.

this potential difference may well be only apparent. In the

authors' view, philosophy
is a priori in that its assertions,
statements, or
are
a
true
But
what
is
3,
318).
(pp.
propositions
conceptually
conceptual truth? To
answer this question another distinction must be taken into account. The a priori-a
So,

nexus. The
posteriori distinction is only half the story of the philosophy-science
can of
other half is the analytic-synthetic distinction, a veritable philosophical
worms that the authors open and close very quickly (p. 438n). This distinction is
in philosophy
truth" is a standard alternative
"conceptual
important because

expression for "analytic truth." In this use, analytic truth is a matter of linguistic
convention. A statement or proposition is analytic if and only if it is true entirely in
virtue of the meanings
of the terms that constitute it (e.g., "all bachelors are

are female foxes," "all horses are animals," etc.). A

synthetic statement, in contrast, is one whose truth is determined only partly by the
meanings of their constituting terms, and partly by theway theworld is.
To embrace the a priori leads to nativism, rationalism, and innatism only if
unmarried men,"

"all vixens

linked to synthetic knowledge

(as, for instance, Kant did). Talk of analytic a priori
even to the staunchest empiricist (neither the
is
knowledge
perfectly acceptable

British empiricists nor the logical positivists had any problem whatsoever with it).
Behavior
scientists who take experience as themain or only source of knowledge
may thus embrace the a priori without incurring any intellectual liability. Quite the
contrary, they could benefit greatly from the kind of analysis presented in the
insofar as conceptual
to science as experimental
clarity is as essential
rigor. It is unclear whether or not radical behaviorists would be convinced by this
line of argument. They might as well agree with Quine (another philosopher often

book,

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Review of Bennett & Hacker

considered

to have

distinction

altogether.

Skinnerian

in rejecting the analytic-synthetic

proclivities)
In this case, a real disagreement with the authors would

ensue.

Finally, this is a very tendentious book in its general outlook of philosophy.

Its title is thus too encompassing
and, because of that, deceiving. A more precise
title would

have been Conceptual

Foundations
A
of Cognitive Neuroscience:
or something to that effect. But of course, such a title
Wittgensteinian Approach,
would not have been attractive to many philosophers. We
the
ignore whether
a reductionism
authors'
title expresses
to Wittgensteinian
of philosophy
naive
philosophy of ordinary language. If it does, we advise the philosophically
reader not to uncritically accept it at face value. For better or worse, philosophy
is

much

richer thanWittgensteinian

analysis

philosophy of ordinary language. The authors'

represents only a fraction of the possible benefits of philosophy to science.
References

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Maiden, MA: Blackwell.
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theory (pp. 79-101). Amherst, MA: University ofMassachusetts Press. Reprinted in
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University Press.
(1969). On certain similarities between the Philosophical
Day, W.
Investigations of
Ludwig Wittgenstein and the operationism of Skinner. Journal of theExperimental
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Fodor, J. (1975). The Language of thought.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct:How the mind creates language. New York:
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Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Uttal, W. R. (2001). The new phrenology: The limitsof localizing cognitive processes in
the brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations.New York: Macmillan.
Wittgenstein, L. (1961). Tractatus logico-philosophicus. New York: Routledge. (Original
work published 1921).

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